Media Release

Tuesday 28 June 2005

The brain drain is a problem; the Balance of Payments drain is a disaster.

“The current account deficit at March 2005 of $10.3 billion reflects the long term price we pay for the sale of valuable New Zealand assets to overseas interests, and a massive unrestrained spending spree on cheap imported goods,” says Democrat Finance spokesman John Pemberton.

“The sale of our valuable assets continues to be an unmitigated disaster,” Pemberton asserts. “Huge profits such as those made by the commercial banks are sent off shore, with no benefit to New Zealanders. All we see is our Balance of Payments deficit continuing to rise.”

Pemberton points out that that debt servicing on the overseas Government and Corporate Debt ($156.089 billion at 31 March 2005) compounds the disaster.

He says it is time we put our Balance of Payments house into order.

“It is time we regained our economic sovereignty. It is long past time we fulfilled the expectations of the world’s leading financial institutions, by balancing New Zealand’s current account and progressively repaying our foreign debt.

“The Democrats for social credit will: charge a variable surcharge on all New Zealand money transferred off shore or exchanged for other currencies (Foreign Transaction Surcharge); utilise to a far greater extent the borrowing opportunities available domestically rather than borrowing overseas; and absolutely rule out any more government lead asset sales.”

“Money collected from FTS will be used to reduce internal taxation and to progressively pay back our overseas debt,” Pemberton explains.

“FTS will automatically prevent the country from being swamped by overseas goods and services as the surcharge will rise to compensate for any drift to imbalance in the current account.

“We can have our country back!”

ENDS

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